


Freak Like You

by Legs (InsanityRule)



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: F/M, Five lives AU, Gen, some mild mentions of blood and injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-22 23:50:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18537982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsanityRule/pseuds/Legs
Summary: In an alternate world where Five is alive and living at the Manor, he takes on the responsibilities of maintaining Bruce's playboy lifestyle in order to properly convince the people that Bruce Wayne cannot be Batman. Some times it doesn't go quite as planned.





	Freak Like You

Bruce makes the mistake of sniffing when he feels the fresh trickle of blood collecting on his upper lip. It isn't his worst injury of the hour, let alone the night, but a broken nose is far from pleasant.

“Should get that looked at bat boy,” Selina drawls. “Hard to kiss you once your whole face swells up like a balloon.”

It's… more motivating than be cares to admit. “We haven't found Two Face.”

“Haven't found your tooth either, but I guess you're okay with one less molar.” He'd forgotten about the pain in his mouth; not that he couldn't feel it but the sniffling awoke every nerve in his face. He runs his tongue over the space where his back molar used to be and winces, and groans when that screws up his face. “You're a real disaster sometimes, you know that?”

“Occupational hazard.” He spits onto the rooftop and there's more blood than he anticipated. “I'll go see Lee. Now. But, Selina, we need-”

“I'll follow the leads, Bruce,” she says, put out but only for the dramatics and not genuine irritation. “What would you do without me?”

“I'm fairly certain I wouldn't have been hit in the face with a brick.” She almost goes to tap his nose playfully, but smirks and instead drags it across his chest as she stalks over to the edge of the roof and vaults over the edge in a graceful arc. “Be careful.”

He knows she didn't hear him, because he'd have lost another tooth if she did.

-

Lee's clinic is on the borderline between the central part of the city and the Narrows, ten blocks from his current location. There's the part where he climbed down off the roof and his insistent knocks on her office door, but he's missing the middle chunk of time in between those. Probably something he should mention.

She takes one look at him, even with the cowl covering up the worst of it, and sends him into the nearest exam room, where he finds a familiar face supporting an eerily similar set of bruises to the ones mottling his own face.

“The gala,” Bruce says, grunting as he removes his cowl without jostling his nose.

Five pulls back the bloody tissues under his own, possibly broken nose and adds, “the _GCPD_ gala. Fistfight. You?”

“Brick.” He feels around for that pesky tooth again and, unfortunately, finds it. “Two Face's goons. Why'd you get in a fight?”

“I tried asking the same thing,” Lee says as she enters, and she guides Bruce to the paper covered gurney to Five's right. “Keep the tissues up to your nose.” Five does as he's told and stops the stream before it hits Lee's clinic floor. “Now, why don't you let me see whatever it is you keep messing with in your mouth.”

She's astute. He opens wide and tilts his head to the side to show Lee the gap. “Knocked clean out.”

“I'll be the judge of that.” She tilts his head up and shines a light at his upper molar gap, and tsks. “I don't think anyone would call this clean, but it looks like it took the root with it. X-Rays will confirm there aren't any pieces left, but I'm more concerned about this.” She gestures to his nose. “And, oh boy-”

“Concussion?”

“I take it you've had symptoms.” She shines her light into Bruce's eyes, and winces.

“Dilated?”

“Oh yeah, but evenly at least,” she says. “I’ll give you a second pass in a bit but I’m also going to start apologizing now, because I need to set your nose.”

He's taken hits, hard ones, with a worrying frequency, but the procedure to right his crooked nose will _always_ bring tears to his eyes. She packs it full of gauze and tapes it into place, exceptionally efficient and gentle with his messed up face. “Please tell me you didn't drive to the clinic.”

“Walked,” Bruce says, voice stuffy and garbled. “Alfred-”

“Is already on his way because of this one.” She points to Five, who's _not broken_ nose is finally starting to clot properly. “He'll need a full check up from Lucius later.”

“He looks worse than I do,” Five claims.

“I'd say you look worse,” Bruce says.

“You can't see yourself.”

“Neither can you.”

“Boys, please,” Lee claps a hand on both of their shoulders. “You both look terrible. Alfred is going to come get the two of you, and you're going to _rest_. I'm not entertaining any arguments. Stay here until Alfred arrives. We don’t need anyone seeing double and passing out.” She moves over to the sink and fills a paper cup with water. “And rinse your mouth so you don't upset your stomach.”

Bruce does as he’s told, carefully maneuvering his sore cheek to swish the water around before spitting the blood tinged water back into the cup. “Why’d you get into a fight?”

“I wasn’t in the mood to provoke,” Five shrugs, “but I may have said something insensitive. To be fair the Senator said something lewd about the cut of Silver’s dress. I feel it was justified.”

“Leave the crime fighting to me, please,” Bruce pleads, although secretly he’s cheering for Five’s antics. “If nothing else do it for my peace of mind.”

“I can fight.” He blows his nose into a fresh handful of tissues and swears when his bloody nose starts flowing again. He stuffs a few up his nose and holds them in place. “I can fight better than you.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“I could if I trained properly, if you’d _let_ me.”

“Five, you can’t feel pain,” Bruce says, beseeching, rehashing the old arguments in his head again and coming to the same conclusion. “We don’t want you running around on broken legs.” Five continues to scowl into his tissues. “You said you liked the parties.”

Five shrugs one shoulder, but he’s terrible at hiding his smiles. “I _did_ say that.”

“You had a nice time with Silver?”

Five chuffs. “Did you with Selina?”

“I did.”

“Me too.”

The door begins to open, and Bruce feels his legs tense to jump up and block it, but he can hear Alfred’s voice carrying from the hall. “... can’t leave them to their own devices for one evening, ah, Masters Bruce and Five,” Alfred greets them with false cheer. “Well aren’t you two quite a pair.”

And Lee follows him in without letting the door open too wide. “I wrote a couple prescriptions for the two of them.” She hands Alfred two bags, explaining, “pain and swelling for Bruce, and,” she pauses, “just swelling, technically, for Five.”

Five says, “thank you Leslie.”

She’s bemused, smiling, “you’re welcome.” She comes closer and moves his tissues, sighing when she sees the increased flow. “You blew out the clot, didn’t you.”

“Maybe.”

She holds out a biohazard can and a handful of tissues. “Keep pinching the bridge, and _stop_ blowing your nose. We don’t want you passing out from a little nosebleed.”

“If I have a say, Master F, I think we’d all prefer if you could keep yourself from getting into these little scrapes of yours.”

“Except this time,” Five says, gaining himself a couple confused looks. “He’s going to have to go in front of the board looking like that,” he points to Bruce, who’s not doing a good job of making himself look smaller when he’s still in his bulky armor, “so I did everyone a favor getting him a cover story. A chivalrous one-”

“I wouldn’t push it, sir,” Alfred sighs, “although I suppose I will concede the fortunately coincidental nature of the evening.”

“I know I’m beating a dead horse,” Lee says, interjecting, “but the two of you need to rest, and Alfred,” she gestures to Bruce, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, “I’m afraid it’s very likely this one has a mild concussion. Be sure to check in on him during the night.”

“Lovely,” he sighs deeply. “Well, come on then. Let’s get out of Miss Tompkins’ hair and the two of you in bed. And no _buts_ ,” he points at them both and their mouths snap shut, “or we’ll have a couple extra bruises to explain to the tabloids.”


End file.
